


Tuck and Roll

by DarylDixonGrimes



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Zombie Apocalypse, Comedy, Flirting, I like this broken window theory better, M/M, Parkour, or i like to think it's funny anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-22 23:18:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13177311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarylDixonGrimes/pseuds/DarylDixonGrimes
Summary: Daryl's lazy Saturday gets interrupted by a stranger crashing through his living room window. Hilarity (and eyebrow waggling) ensues.





	Tuck and Roll

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this post](http://dailyau.tumblr.com/post/168929839215/accidentally-parkoured-through-your-window-and) from Daily AU, though I didn't use the full prompt.

Daryl woke up well after noon on Saturday with every intention of being the laziest fuck on the entire planet. Stumbling through his apartment in nothing but worn pajama pants, he scratched his head with one hand and pawed the sleep out of his eyes with the other.

Breakfast was coffee and a bowl of cocoa pebbles, technically a saucepan of cocoa pebbles since he refused to wash a bowl on his first day off in weeks. He ate with a small soup ladle before setting the empty pan down on his coffee table and throwing both feet up on one of the arms.

There was nothing decent on TV but old westerns. But he liked those well enough and figured if he got tired of them, he could always throw in a DVD next time he got up to pee or fix more cereal.

Sighing contentedly, he settled deeper into the sofa while a wagon train headed toward certain trouble. It was going to be a very good, very relaxing day.

Or so he thought.

The man came crashing through Daryl’s window in the middle of a shootout at the saloon. For a brief moment, he thought the sound of glass breaking was part of the movie, but then a figure in black rolled right across his living room floor into his coffee table. The saucepan fell off, the last dregs of chocolate milk sinking into the carpet.

There was a brief second when Daryl didn’t react, watching the man groan and let out a quiet “ow” while he rubbed at a scratch on his arm.

And then Daryl scrambled up off the couch.

“What the fucking fuck?” Daryl said, picking up the saucepan like a weapon, ready to beat this fucker dead on his living room floor if he had to. Right on cue, the handle of his cheap cookware broke right off in his hand, the bowl part thudding to the carpet again with a dull metallic clang.

Awesome.

“Oh God.” The guy tried to stand up, thunking his head on the underside of the coffee table when he did. He groaned, carefully extricating himself from underneath it, trying his best to avoid putting his palms in broken glass. Daryl picked up the bowl of the would-be saucepan again. He could still sling it at his face if he had to.

“If you’re tryin’ to rob the place, you’re gonna be disappointed,” Daryl said, taking in the man’s appearance. He had on black from head to toe. Tight black sweatpants with elastic around his ankles and a skin-hugging hoodie to match. He was small, compact and lithe with a long goatee and bun of hair atop his head, some of which stuck out at odd angles now, pulled loose by his run-in with Daryl’s living room window.

His living room window on the third goddamned floor.

“I’m not,” the stranger practically groaned, rubbing at his forehead. “God, I’ll pay for the window. I’m so sorry.”

“Wanna explain how the hell you came crashin through it in the first place?”

“Parkour,” he said, like that explained everything.

“Parwhat?” Daryl asked. It sounded like some kind of animal or sea creature.  _And here we have a wild parkour_ _puffing itself up to avoid being eaten_ _._ _Fun fact: t_ _he male parkour actually has the babies._

“Free running. It’s about getting from point A to point B as fast as possible,” he said. “I was aiming for your roof and slipped. It was either your window or a three story fall. Sorry again.”

“You ever heard of the damn bus?” Daryl asked, and the man actually laughed, his mouth breaking into dazzling smile that split across his whole face and lit up his eyes. Daryl bit back the urge to ask him if he wore contacts, like that was fucking relevant.

“It’s a hobby, I guess.”

“Yeah, well you’re pretty damn good at it,” Daryl snarked, finally ditching the broken saucepan by setting it on his coffee table with a loud thunk.

“Touche. I’m Paul by the way.”

“Daryl.”

“May I, Daryl?” Paul asked, gesturing toward the couch. Huffing through his teeth, Daryl threw both hands up in an overdramatic shrug. Why the fuck not have the random guy who broke through his window take a breather on his fucking couch? That was totally normal.

Muttering a quiet thank you, Paul sank down onto one end, leaning back and closing his eyes before resting one hand over the tops of his lids. It was then that Daryl noticed the blood. It was easy to miss with his all black ensemble, but the little red streak on his hand made Daryl more aware of the little rips in the sleeves, of the slight glisten of moisture here and there along the fabric.

He rolled his eyes. Because why not both let the random intruder sit on his couch but also go get his fucking ramshackle first aid kit to treat the damn cuts he got from busting through is window on a random Saturday afternoon.  _Why the fuck not?_

Daryl stomped off toward the bathroom, digging around under the sink for the cardboard box. On his way out, he grabbed a wrinkled shirt out of the hamper and sniffed it before pulling it on.

“Roll up your sleeves, ninja warrior,” Daryl said, plopping the box on his coffee table. Paul slid his hand off his face and looked at him. The sleeves, it turned out, were too tight to roll up. So he slipped out of the jacket instead. Underneath, he had on a ribbed gray tank top. And Daryl found his mouth go dry immediately. The small fucker was  _toned_ , he’d give him that, the tank revealing muscular arms and shoulders, hugging tight against perfect pecs. Daryl even caught the barest hint of abdominals despite the fact that he was hunched over at the middle, and he felt suddenly very embarrassed that this guy had seen him shirtless.

Closing his mouth for fear of drooling, he occupied himself with pouring peroxide down the guy’s—Paul’s—arms, catching the runoff with a clean rag. None of the cuts looked crazy deep to the point of needing stitches, and most of them had stopped bleeding already. Still, he pulled a couple shut with butterfly bandages, trying not to focus too much on how taut Paul’s arms were beneath his fingers while he did it.

A few more bandages of varying sizes, and he pulled his hands away, slamming the peroxide back into the box.

“Think you’ll live.”

“I really arm sorry. Arms. Arm.  _Jesus_.” Paul put his hands over his face and laughed into them. “I  _am_  sorry.”

Daryl had no fucking clue what that was about, but alright.

“If you’ll grab a vacuum and a trash can, I’ll clean this up,” Paul said. “And help you tape something over the window until you can get it fixed.”

“Yeah, okay,” Daryl said, and he picked up the broken saucepan on his way to the kitchen, tossing it into the sink before grabbing the trash can and the vacuum. True to his word, Paul started cleaning, tossing shards of glass into the trash. He had Daryl fetch a broom and dustpan at one point, sweeping up some more debris.

The whole time he worked, Daryl pretended to focus on the old television, but if anyone had asked him what had happened in that whole twenty minutes or so, he would’ve stared at them dumbfounded.

The way Paul’s back muscles rippled when he bent down to pick up a shard of broken glass though? He could’ve described that in vivid fucking detail.

At one point, Paul stood up and pulled his hair loose, strands of brown cascading roughly over his shoulders for a brief moment before he gathered it all up and twisted it atop his head once more. Daryl snickered, unable to stop himself.

“What’s so funny?” Paul asked.

“You look like fucking Jesus Christ with your hair down. All you need’s the white robe.”

“Ah, but Daryl, where there was one set of footprints...”

“Fuck off,” Daryl snorted.

“Fine, but that’s why you’re going to hell,” Paul said, unfurling the vacuum cord and looking around the room for a usable plug.

“Figured I was already doomed on account of all the sodomy,” Daryl said, and Paul literally started choking. On what, Daryl had no fucking idea, but there he was, coughing and sputtering into his hand.

“You’re gay?” Paul asked, the word “gay” coming out about five octaves higher than it should’ve while he fought back another cough, his eyes watering.

Daryl opened his mouth to answer. Or really to grumble something along the lines of,  _“yeah, you got a fuckin problem with that?”_

But he never got the chance.

There was a loud “fuck” that was really two loud “fuck”s melding into one giant “fuck!” Paul ducked and covered his head while Daryl stared in pure disbelief.

There was a fucking pigeon in his living room, panicked wings beating and flapping in the air. It attempted to land on the coffee table, sending Daryl’s coffee cup thunking to the floor. Then it shot for the makeshift “desk” in the corner that was really a place for Daryl to throw all his mail until the pile got so big that he was forced to actually read it. Papers went everywhere. A flyer for “Husky’s Male Revue” that said “Come Back and See Us!” in huge red letters fluttered to the carpet by Paul’s feet.

He managed to raise one eyebrow in Daryl’s direction, his forehead wrinkling above it in a series of tiny ripples. And then the pigeon cooed in alarm and flew up into the upper corner of the room, wings flapping erratically.

Daryl swore and got up, jogging toward his bedroom, his mind on the crossbow in his closet. At the last minute, he changed directions, ripping the top sheet off his bed instead.

Back in the living room, he threw one end at Paul, who seemed to immediately understand what he intended them to do with it. Together, they approached the bird, holding the sheet like a fishing net.

“One… Two… Three.” They tossed the far ends of the sheet, the fabric cascading over the pigeon and trapping it underneath. And Daryl could already see the bird starting to slip out from underneath it, but Paul wasn’t having it. He thrust part of a sheet into Daryl’s hand and dove forward, tucking his body and rolling beneath the parachute of black cotton before grabbing one corner and then the other.

To say Daryl was impressed when he brought both ends of the sheet together, trapping the bird inside, was an understatement.

He opened his mouth to say something, but Paul spoke first.

“I think there’s glass in my ass,” he said, cringing at the exact moment the pigeon hooted from within the confines of Daryl’s bed sheet. Then he pushed the remaining corners into Daryl’s hands, leaving him to hold the makeshift bag full of struggling bird. Daryl walked it to the window and released the damn thing back into the wild before balling up the sheet and tossing it on the floor right under the window. Just in case they needed it again.

When he turned back to Paul, he found him looking over his shoulder, one hand gripping the side of his ass, like he could pull the injury into view.  

“So, since this has been the most awkward day of my life already, can I make it worse and ask you to pull this thing out?” Paul asked.

Daryl’s brain temporarily short circuited at the words “pull this thing out,” but he recovered quickly and grunted an affirmative before jerking his head toward the couch. Paul laid down on his stomach.

Sure enough, there was a tiny hunk of glass stuck through the butt of his sweatpants. Daryl gripped it with the tips of his fingers and jerked it out. Paul barely reacted, a quiet hiss the only indication that he even felt it.

“Just to make it more awkward, I’m gonna move these out of the way so I can clean it up,” Daryl said.

“Yeah, sure, why not?” Paul sounded like he was ready to die. And Daryl did his best to keep things clinical, only exposing half of one butt cheek, focusing his attention on pouring peroxide on the wound and covering it with a small bandaid. He definitely did not think about how milky and smooth Paul’s ass was or how it might feel to dig his fingers into it while he tugged Paul deeper inside of him. He definitely did not think about that _at all._

He tugged the sweatpants back up as quickly as he could. Out of sight, out of mind. Besides, what was he gonna do? Fuck the random stranger who came sailing through his window on a Saturday afternoon? How would that conversation even go?

_Hey, I know you sorta showed up out of the blue, but we caught a live bird together and damn if that ain’t bonding. Wanna fuck?_

He cleared his throat and put the peroxide away for the second time. Paul sat up, and if it hurt to put weight on his butt, he didn’t show it.

“Thanks for that,” Paul said. “And another apology for the window and the subsequent wildlife.”

“Owed you that time. Little fucker would’ve gotten away if you hadn’t rolled your cute ass under that sheet.”

“So my ass is cute, huh?”

Goddamn’t, Daryl. You dumb piece of shit.

“I didn’t mean… I meant ass like all of you, not your actual…” Yeah, that wasn’t any fucking better.

“So my all of me is cute, huh?”

“Shut up, Jesus.”

“I guess I should. I wouldn’t be a very good Jesus if I kept helping you down the path of sin,” he said. And a part of Daryl prickled at hearing the word “sin," the part used to signs about how God hates gays and how homosexuality is a one way ticket to hell because of Louis Vuitton chapter 9 or some shit. But Paul was clearly joking, his seriously-are-those-fucking-contacts eyes sparkling in amusement.

“So now you’re helpin me sin?” Daryl asked, because damn’t if Paul was gonna dish the teasing, so was he.

“I would be, you know, if there was sodomy.” The sparkle melted out of his eyes, replaced with a very dull heat. Then they flicked up and down Daryl’s body so quickly he would’ve missed it if he’d blinked.

“You tryin to get out of payin for that window?”

“You never answered my question, but I guess you don’t really have to.” Paul got up at that point, picking up the flyer abandoned on the carpet.

“Was gonna ask if you had a problem with it, but I guess I don’t really gotta.”

Paul smiled, a close-lipped number that creased the corners of his eyes. Then he grabbed the bottom of his tank top and raised it up a few inches. Daryl swallowed thickly at the swaths of toned flesh, at the hint of dark hair that started right above the elastic of his pants. But that wasn’t what Paul was trying to show him.

Right above his hip bone were two symbols for “male” interlocking in black. Around those danced little splashes of rainbow ink that looked like watercolors had seeped into Paul’s flesh.

“I don’t have a problem with it,” Paul said, and then he dropped his tank and picked up the vacuum cord like they’d just had a conversation about the weather. Like he hadn’t come crashing through his window and chased down a damn flying rat with him.

Daryl stopped even trying to pretend he wasn’t watching after that. He stared unabashedly while Paul dragged the vacuum across his carpet, his bicep flexing with every push-pull. He wondered if parkour had given him all that lean strength or if he worked at it in a gym somewhere. He wondered for the 80th time if Paul wore contacts. He wondered what Paul would do if he dropped to his knees on the freshly vacuumed carpet and nuzzled his cheek against the front of those sweatpants.

“Do you have a guys cleaning things fetish, or is it just me?” Paul asked, leaning over the makeshift desk where he’d been working on picking up some of the papers scattered by the bird. And Daryl jumped despite the fact that he’d been watching him with zero shame. Which, so much for that idea, because Daryl felt the tips of his ears warm instantly when the other man called him out on it.

“Sorry,” Daryl said, looking down at his coffee table.

“I don’t mind.”

“I don’t,” Daryl finally answered.

“Hmm?”

“Got a guys cleaning things thing.”

“So just me then?”

Daryl cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably on the couch.

“There you go again,” Daryl said. “Tryin to get out of payin for that window.”

Paul laughed softly, more air than anything.

“Trash bags?”

Daryl got up again, not saying anything when Paul actually followed him from one room to another, quietly observing while Daryl opened up the drawer in the kitchen and pulled out the box of plastic bags.

“You got a watchin guys get trash bag things or...”

“Duct tape?” Paul asked, his voice far too amused for such a question. Daryl opened another drawer and moved some sandpaper out of the way. He pressed the silver roll into Paul’s hand.

Back in the living room, they covered and taped over the gaping hole, the room instantly darkening as black plastic covered over the natural light. Daryl hoped the plastic would be enough to keep out any more “subsequent wildlife.”

“Well, that’s that,” Paul said, handing Daryl back the roll of tape. “Should I leave the way I came in or...?”

The words, _“nah, you should stay and come in something else”_  danced on the end of Daryl’s tongue, but he couldn’t bring himself to say them.

He jerked his head toward the door to his apartment instead, walking that way and letting Paul follow him, the uninvited guest shrugging on the ruined black hoodie as they walked. Something inside of Daryl felt heavy at the idea of him leaving. Daryl was usually oblivious to flirting, but even he couldn’t miss what they’d been doing for the past hour or more.

And all for nothing.

Out in the hallway, Paul put his arm on the door jamb and leaned to the side casually. From seemingly nowhere, he produced a piece of paper Daryl recognized instantly from the pad on his desk, the address of an insurance agent he didn’t use stamped at the top.

“Call me when you get an estimate on that window,” he said. “Or sooner if, you know, sodomy.”

He smiled at Daryl one more time and then peeled himself away from the door, striding off down the hallway.

“Hey wait,” Daryl called after him, and Paul turned around, eyebrow going up again. The little wrinkles on his forehead when he raised that damn thing were going to be the death of Daryl, he just knew it.

“Yeah?”

“Do you wear contacts?” Daryl asked.

“Nope.” Paul spun around and kept on his way down the hall. Daryl didn’t shut the door until Paul rounded the corner toward the elevators. It was then and only then that he realized he’d been squeezing the little piece of paper so hard he could’ve wrung out liquid if there’d been any. His fingers actually ached when he unclenched his fist.

“Little shit.” Daryl started laughing the minute he unfolded the paper.

Paul had written “Come back and see us!” at the top followed by his number and a crude drawing of a bird flying through a shattered window.

Daryl walked into the kitchen and tacked it right to his fridge with a black magnet.

He wondered if the amount of time it would take him to shower and actually get dressed would count as too soon.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm toying with the idea of making this a two or three parter where, you know, sodomy. 
> 
> Anyway, the boys sure do make a good pigeon-catchin' team, huh?
> 
> As always, bug me on tumblr at DarylDixonGrimes.


End file.
